Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The End of the Birth Canal

The Governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant (R), signed a bill into law that will require all physicians performing abortions must have admitting privileges at the local hospital. This has nothing at all to do with the safety of the woman and everything to do with keeping out of state, board certified doctors from being able to perform abortions in the state of Mississippi.

And truth be told, this was nothing but a pathetic political move by the Republican Party of Mississippi to use the power of the state government to close the only abortion clinic in the state. The hypocrisy of the Conservative mantra of "small government" aside, Democrats realized the ploy and fought the bill politically. Bryant then used their opposition in the most disgusting way possible.

Mr. Bryant states:

"Even if you believe in abortion, the hypocrisy of the left that now tried to kill this bill, that says that I should have never signed it, the true hypocrisy is that their one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb."

First of all, we're talking about a fetus here, not a child. One is a parasite incapable of life independent of the mother, with only the potential to become a human (assuming nothing goes wrong, that is.) The other is a fully formed human being with a functioning brain, heart, liver, and other vital organs - assuming no other health issues prevented the proper formation of these organs. The two are not equivalent.

Second, I realize that politicians have always tried to play to their base, but at some point these people should be held accountable for deceitful statements like this. Nobody in their right mind would want to abort a fetus (not a child, a fetus), but if a physician is willing to travel to your state to assist women with their Constitutional right to their own health, then that, Mr. Bryant, is none of our business.

I could quote what the Bible claims about aborting fetuses, and how the Christian god deals with children it doesn't like, but that's not what this is about. This is about the freedom of a woman to chose. And the only reason Conservatives even know what a fetus is, much less that we can remove it before it comes to term, is due to modern science. So stop moving the goalposts of your definition of life.

So give us all a break, Mr. Bryant, because we all know that, like most Conservatives, the end of the birth canal marks the end of your concern for human life.